Mate in 2: knight to g7
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The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Difficulty 1220 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
In Chess960 the pieces start on unfamiliar squares, so tactics appear earlier and from unusual angles. Do not trust classical patterns — read the actual lines of the bishops, the rooks and the queen from where they really stand in this position.
Mate in two usually opens with a forcing move — a check, a capture or an unstoppable threat — that strips the king of squares or defenders, so the follow-up mate becomes unavoidable. Look for the first move that leaves the opponent only losing replies.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king f1, queen h7, rook d1 h2, bishop g3, knight f5, pawn a2 f2 b3 c4.
Black: king e8, queen b4, rook d8 f8, bishop c6 e7, pawn d5 g5 b6 a7 f7.
10 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 35.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (29 against 30; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on e8.
It is White to move on move 35, with 45 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, g.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
35. Ng7+ Kd7 36. Qf5#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to g7 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to f5 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Kd7, then Qf5# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 35. Ng7+ — knight to g7 with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 36. Qf5# — queen to f5 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Mate in 2
A forced checkmate in two moves.
Mate in two: your move, any reply, then the mating blow. Start with the most forcing first moves — checks and sacrifices that shrink the opponent's options to almost nothing. Against every single reply you must have a mate ready, so check them all without exception. The common failure is analyzing the pretty defense and forgetting the boring one.
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #513.
SP-513 · BastionGuard — King shifted to c or f, knights kept clear of the edges — 168 positions in all.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on b1 and h1, the queen on e1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 539.
The engine's main line opens with Nh3, bringing the knight out to h3.
Morozov Balance Index: 86 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +15 centipawns for White (depth 42, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #513Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-513
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